No single person’s death is more important than another’s: each murder brings heartbreak and suffering to people who are still living.
The loss of any life — be it man, woman, elder or child — affects not only those who loved the deceased, but also Trenton as a whole. Several cases captured the city’s hearts and minds this year, for a variety of reasons. This is a short list of those that were most captivating.
Julio Cesar-Cruz
Julio Cesar Cruz
On Feb. 15, Julio Cesar Cruz, 18, had returned home from a bakery on Whittaker Avenue when he was attacked. According to court documents in the case, Cruz had just reached his destination in the first block of Rusling Street when two men, later identified as Michael Holman and Dante Martin, robbed him. When Cruz realized that he was being attacked, court documents state, he repeatedly banged on the door to his residence. A witness later told police that Holman and Martin pulled Cruz to the ground, causing injuries to his head.
Holman then searched Cruz’s pockets, a witness said, while Martin kicked Cruz several times. People who lived with Cruz eventually ran outside to help him, and the suspects fled the scene. Cruz was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
The event caused an outcry by the Hispanic community, which led to a protest on the steps of City Hall by activists and citizens who pleaded with police to stop the targeted violence against undocumented immigrants.
As police investigated the case, they obtained surveillance footage from 10 sources, which showed Holman and Martin in the area of Rusling Street before and after the murder. The two suspects were arrested about two weeks after the killing and charged with felony murder and robbery in connection with Cruz’s death. They later admitted to robbing Cruz, according to court documents.
Cruz had only been in the United States for 45 days before he was killed.
Enrico Smalley Jr.
Enrico Smalley Jr.
Attorneys in the case seem to agree on one thing: Enrico Smalley Jr. was set up to be killed. But that is where the agreement ends.
Smalley, 20, was gunned down outside of La Guira Bar around 1:20 a.m. on July 12. Shaheed Brown, 30, was arrested about a month after the shooting and charged with murder and related weapons offenses in connection with Smalley’s death. Prosecutors say Brown was “lurking” outside of the bar that morning waiting to assassinate Smalley, and that he grabbed Smalley’s attention, took him to the side of the building and shot him. But Brown’s defense attorney Edward Heyburn believes Smalley was shot by an unknown male, who has yet to apprehended by police.
Surveillance video taken from outside the bar on the morning Smalley was killed shows that two men followed Brown and Smalley as they walked down the street. One of the men reaches for something on the left side of his body moments before he leaves the camera’s view. Then, a few seconds later, the unknown man runs back into the camera’s view and appears to be concealing something in front of him.
Heyburn says the unknown man is the shooter, and that police never made an attempt to find him.
Earlier this month, Heyburn gave the video footage to The Trentonian and filed a Motion to Compel Discovery alleging that the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office is withholding information that could exonerate his client. Prosecutors then filed a motion asking a judge to consider a gag order and alleged that Heyburn had “doctored” the video for his client’s benefit.
Judge Robert Billmeier granted that gag order and said attorneys must now consult the court before making any future disclosures to the press about the case.
Rodney Burke
Rodney Burke
According to his family, 48-year-old Rodney Burke was diagnosed with schizophrenia and had a “lower than average” IQ. He lived on Hamilton Avenue in housing provided by Greater Trenton Behavioral Healthcare but was moved to South Broad Street about a month before he was murdered.
During the year and a half that he lived on Hamilton Avenue, Burke was repeatedly robbed of his disability check by street hustlers who took advantage of him and others who lived in his building. But according to Burke’s family, Rodney’s counselor believed he was the cause of repeated break-ins because he sometimes allowed friends who protected him to sleep in his apartment, which was against the rules.
About a week before Burke was murdered, he asked his sister to drive him from Hamilton Avenue, where he spent most of his time, to his new South Broad Street apartment. He made the request because a man who Rodney claimed had repeatedly robbed him was trying to figure out where he lived. On Nov. 4, Burke was found inside his home suffering from multiple gunshot wounds; he died at the hospital.
Kenneth Hines and Alexandria Gomez were later charged with murder and conspiracy in connection with Burke’s death. Prosecutors say the two of them, along with two other men, planned a robbery, which resulted in Burke’s murder. The other two men have yet to be apprehended.
George Jamison
George Jamison and Silas Johnson
One man is charged with the deaths of George Jamison and Silas Johnson.
Randy Kareem Washington, 33, was arrested on Oct. 29, shortly after he allegedly shot and killed 64-year-old Johnson near the intersection of Market Street and the Route 1 overpass. Prosecutors later said that Washington sat directly behind Johnson on a train and then confronted him when they exited near Route 1. A witness to the shooting told police that Washington accused Johnson of raping his sister moments before he shot him.
While investigating Johnson’s murder, police found two shell casings that matched casings left at the scene of George Jamison’s murder about three months prior. Police say surveillance footage of Jamison’s murder shows Washington wearing a multicolored jacket. Police recovered that jacket when they executed a search warrant at a home where Washington was staying shortly after the murder of Silas Johnson.
Jamison’s murder is believed to be a robbery gone awry.